


Kiss on the Cheek; Warmth of the Heart

by Cumberbatch Critter (CumberbatchCritter)



Category: Tales of Xillia
Genre: Agria - Freeform, Alvin pondering on the journey, Angst, Belonging, Character Study, Chimeriad, Drabble, Elize, Family, Friendship, Gen, Good side versus bad side, Jude - Freeform, Leia - Freeform, Loneliness, Milla - Freeform, Oneshot, Presa - Freeform, Rowen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-27
Updated: 2014-03-27
Packaged: 2018-01-17 04:48:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1374415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CumberbatchCritter/pseuds/Cumberbatch%20Critter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alvin has decided that fitting in somewhere, having something to stand up for... well, it's not a bad thing at all.</p>
<p>Character study, set after the Elize/Alvin swing-set conversation in the game.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kiss on the Cheek; Warmth of the Heart

**Author's Note:**

> I was overjoyed to find that there's fanfiction for this fandom! (And also that I wasn't the only one who thought Alvin was really clingy on Jude to a point of making me ponder... O.o) So, I decided to write some fanfiction for it despite that it's not terribly popular. This is an 'episode-tag', of sorts, but not an episode, but a point in the game? Yeah, you get it. And a character study. I'm going to deviating from this a bit in another story I post - it'll be a story about Alvin and Jude in certain situations that take a twist on the canon, so be on the lookout for that if you like ToX.
> 
> As per usual for fanfiction, I do not own ToX, nor do I create any profit from my fanfiction.

Did it actually count, Alvin wondered, as a kiss, when it was a twelve year old giving it to him on the cheek?

Besides, what did Elize know? She was just a kid. And yet... how was it that the kids knew more than he could even _try_ to understand at this point? He was so torn up over the whole thing that he hardly could tell left from right, let alone figuring out if he allegiance was with Milla and Jude or against them.

Except he kind of _had_ figured it out, though, hadn't he? Because that whole thing he had spieled off to Elize and Teepo? That wasn't a lie. For once in his life, he was talking honestly about his feelings it was probably only because Elize was twelve that he could manage without blunting it into a joke or a taunt towards someone else. He couldn't tell this to Milla. He didn't even think he could tell it to Jude, who had been the exception to the case since he'd joined the two misfits on their journey.

Elize was twelve and she had him talking about how he didn't want to be lonely. Jude was fifteen and he had him faking echoes under his breath as the kid yelled off a mountain top. Alvin didn't talk - he fought tooth and nail and shot people in the back, but he did not talk. And he most certainly did not say _echo echo echo_ under his breath to entertain the kid who, inevitably, ended up hating him in the end.

They made him change. They had made him change in ways that he had _never_ expected and that was simply why he couldn't walk away now. He had to turn his back on Exodus, on Wingul and Presa and Agria, which hurt. He understand _exactly_ what they had gone through and what they were still going through. But... Jude and Milla and Elize and Rowen and even Leia, they made him feel connected in ways that the Chimeriad couldn't. They made him feel like he had a _family_.

Family was worth fighting for and, if anything was, family was certainly worth dying for. For someone who had grown up without a good family, well, at least not in the past handful of years of his life when he had needed it the most, if he were honest, Alvin _wanted_ to be in good graces with his group. He had told Elize: he didn't want to be lonely.

She accepted him, the stupid kid. How could any of them accept him? He knew that they kept him around so they could watch him, so it was just a false pretence that they cared for him in any certain way. It was alright to live in a world of bliss, for however short of time, but this time, he wasn't going to be fooling himself. He wasn't going to be fooling Jude and the gang from now on. He'd decided where his loyalties lie.

There was something far more intimate about a kiss to the cheek from a person so innocent and so pure like the fresh snow of Kanbalar than pushing a nameless woman against the wall in some back alley behind a bar for a quick fix.

He'd always been about quick fixes. Shooting people before asking questions, taking the easy way out... but no more.

He had someone to stand up for now, not just himself, but people he cared for. And if he didn't at least _try_... Well, he was pretty much damned if he did, damned if it didn't, but at least he would die with the knowledge that he finally stood up for something.

 


End file.
